Happy Sunday Minasan!!! The weather is slowly cranking up and it's getting more and more difficult to step out especially when you don't have a car and will have to walk to destinations. The dangers of heatstroke are real people! So today I want to talk a little bit about my life as an ALT in Japan. What is an ALT? Time and again, people from outside Japan would ask me: "What work do you do there?", to which I reply, "I'm an ALT." Wait, what? To people who have been interested in Japan as I had been before coming here, you would know that ALT stands for Assistant Language Teacher. Now, this takes different meanings as well depending on where you're teaching and I will discuss the role in detail in a Junior High School perspective as this is where I am assigned. I am basically an assistant to a Japanese Teacher of English.  I will try and get Jerome, Richard, and Leizel to talk about their experience in the Elementary school front so we...

Okay. 3 years ago, I turned 30 and didn't really care much for skin regimens. Frankly speaking, I hate having to slap on creams and do face massage and all those stuff. I'm not a big fan of beauty rituals. I can do makeup. On my face that is. I can do a decent wing with liquid eyeliner, but basically, facial care, NADA. Thankfully enough I was born with Chinese blood and genetics blessed me with a low maintenance type of skin. I occasionally break out, but never really severe. My skin looks naturally tight (till recently, turns out being neglectful of your skin does eventually show). But genetics can only get you so far. Da da daaaaaan... (I wish I could do sound effects, but unfortunately I can't so please indulge me and do the sound effects yourself either inside your head or out loud). I was looking in the mirror, and there it was. I knew that one day this day would eventually come... FINE LINES!!! Okay, I'm not that vain and the lines weren't that ...

みんな、お久しぶり！ Long time no see everyone! Okay, so I know I keep promising to update more, but despite all the time I have, I can't seem to get into my blogging groove. But I guess I can churn at least 1 post a week. I will most certainly try. So, I can't even remember what my last post was. Hahaha! But lemme catch you up with my current status. Before December 2017  The first time I took the test was back in July 2017 for the N4 level which I passed due to diligently studying for exams and memorizing kanji every down time I get even if it's just for 3 mins. So N4 was easy for me, but since then, everything went downhill. I was lucky enough to score plane tickets on sale and went home for a couple of weeks during summer vacation. When I got back, I was really tired of going to school everyday. It was so boring and I got caught up in a game on my smartphone. In short, I was barely studying if at all. Before we knew it, it was December and we needed to take the ...

Wow... took me a whole year to write the sequel to my winter survival tips article . Last year, I and my colleagues experienced our first-ever winter in Japan and it was a real challenge. When this year's winter rolled around, we were a bit more prepared than before. Compared to last year's winter, this winter is definitely colder. Last year we had exactly one snow day that lasted about half a day. This year, we had a snow day where the white landscape lasted for a week and a half. After this episode, we had several more snow days and it was really nice but annoying. (Snow looks really nice and all, but I really hate it.) So as promised I am giving several tips for keeping your room warm in the winter. Tip #1 Mind the Flooring Insulating the floor is one of the first steps in keeping your room warm. If you have your space heater on and warming the place everything is moot if the floor is not insulated. So if your room is not lined with tatami, you can consider going ...

Atarashii Kotoba O hisashiburi desu ne - It's been a while... Typically an expression used when you haven't seen someone, or something in a while. Konnichiwa - good day. Generic greeting for anyone. Usually used from 10 am till there is daylight. Hanami - sakura (cherry blossom) viewing Zairyuu card - Residence card issued to us when we first landed in Japan as ryuugakusei. Ryuugakusei - Foreign exchange student Yakuba - Town hall Kokumin Kenko Hokenshou - National Health Insurance card obento - packed lunch arubaito - part time job First Day High Konnichiwa!!! O hisashiburi desu ne! Wow, seriously, it has been a long time. Hahaha! Sorry for not updating you guys in a long while. Life as a working student here in Japan can be quite time consuming and basically, tiring. But, all in a day's work. Now, a lot has gone down since the last entry. We've experienced snow (for a day), our first hanami, we've also taken the JLPT N4 exams back in July, ...

For more information on Oarai International Exchange Academy, you can contact me via  Facebook  or  Instagram , or by commenting on this article.  Life in a different country is never easy. You are far from family, friends, loved ones, and the comforts of home. Everything might look fun and glamorous in picture-perfect pictures but those, are but moments. A fleeting glimpse at the everyday life of a person. We are the first Filipino student delegates of the Oarai International Exchange Academy ( 大洗国際交流アカデミー ), a Japanese language school set in the quaint little coastal town of Oarai in the Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. We came to Japan with minimal knowledge of the language and have been, since arriving, consistently learning and improving our grasp of the language. Life in Japan, in Oarai in particular, has been quite the adventure with all the ups and downs and everything in between. Our life here is full of discoveries, realizations, little victories, a lot of te...

I am a tropical girl. And I love it! I love the sun, the heat, the tan you get from walking from your car to the mall entrance. I love everything about the tropics. Okay, maybe not everything, because I do hate the flies and mosquitoes and the smell of dried sweat. But still, I am happy with the muggy temperature of my homeland. I was thrown into a whirlwind of events when I decided to go for my dream of going to study in Japan . And to add the cherry on top of my ice cream sundae, I was set to fly and arrive right smack in the middle of autumn. Not bad, cool weather, red leaves and all. And then the temperature starts dropping. And dropping. And... now, daily, we get -7 degrees Celsius every morning. Quick disclaimer...I am by no means an expert in surviving the freezer-like temperatures but this is a memoir on how I am currently surviving the sub-zero temperatures. So, how will a girl, who loves the sun and the heat so much, survive winter in a coastal town with a sub-zer...